Fabrication and characterization of polysulfone ultrafiltration membrane using polyethylene glycol and tartaric acid: morphology and performance in protein separation

Increase in the hydrophilicity (HPCT) of polysulfone (PS) membrane and subsequently decrease in fouling can be achieved by surface modification of PS based membranes. Therefore, in this work, ultrafiltration membranes with increased HPCT were prepared using the enantiomeric tartaric acid (D-TA) and racemic tartaric acid (DL-TA). Phase inversion technique was used for the preparation of polyethylene glycol and TA blended PS membrane. Morphological analysis of the fabricated membranes was done by scanning electron microscope and atomic force microscopy. Bovine serum albumin (BSA) solution was taken for finding the permeation and rejection behavior of prepared membranes. Maximum BSA rejection was increased by 70.5% for the modified membrane.